'The sea was really warm once I got my shoulders under?' she replied, raising her voice into a question, my stunning Essex girl, 'I swam as far as the furthest buoy. There were pink jellyfish?'

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Submitted: May 21, 2020

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Submitted: May 21, 2020

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Red Sparkle

As if the lurid colour photo and dissected analysis of her on my msn news feed are
not enough. The impassioned WhatsApp messages of condolence: ‘so sorry for your loss’. The down-turned smiley emoticons of grief that make her sound like a discarded doll. I get the cruel tweets
and posts from the warped, the weird, the worrying. Impolite enquiries from the intrusive, bent and maladjusted.

I get asked what she felt like. How did she smell? What did her flesh feel like?
How hard was she for me? Did she enjoy the pain? How high did she get? How many times did she complain? And, most of all: why didn’t I notice the…

As for her health, her beauty on that day, her tactile touch. I can tell you: her
looks, her touch, were among the most pleasurable sensations a man can enjoy. She was beautiful, amazing, loving… and gracious in death.

I still can’t believe she’s dead. Her death, that cruel, inexplicable way
of her demise, remains beyond my comprehension, without scientific explanation, an awful enigma.

*****

I lay on the crowded black sandy beach as Tess waded in through the swell of the
warm sea wearing the tiniest, tied bikini: so tiny that her tinted pubic hair sprouted out in ringlets. I saw the moulded shape of her well-lipped furrow twitch inside her bikini’s fig leaf,
sending me into a frenzy. Felt my thong tent-peg as I rose in silent salute.

Tess looked stunning. Her burnt sienna hair hung in a thick wet flop down one side
of her brown face, a soggy swathe of dark brown waves which kissed her flaming hot cheeks, the sea salt drying in crusty circles on her sun-burnt body. She gave me a shy smile as she tiptoed up the
scorching hot sand.

I felt for her, still hurt deeply down inside by those lewd questions that made
her leave the UK, leave politics, for her new life of sun, sea, sustenance. And, I hoped, sex, when we reached the little hotel just up the flight of steep stone steps from the bustling, hilly,
main thoroughfare, the heaving town square, brimming with tourists, overlooked by Amalfi's magnificent Duomo.

I stood on the beach mat and held out a towel for her to walk into so that I could
wrap her up snug-as-a-bug in a rug: my gorgeous angel. Two nearby girls giggled and covered their mouths in shock-horror. I blushed blood-grey, realizing that Tess's sex had pushed me out of my
thong.

The teenagers, tanned brown chestnuts, tittered then fell about laughing. I fawned
an apology at them, then turned to face my sun-goddess, her face beaming, radiating, with happiness.

'Put him away before he fries, David,' she quipped.

This was the Tess I loved: cheeky, candid, outspoken, a love-child! I took her in
my arms and towelled her from head to toe, drying her hair roughly, smoothing her face, admiring the sparkle in her shiny walnut eyes,

'How was it for you, Tess?' I asked.

'The sea was really warm once I got my shoulders under?' she replied, raising her
voice into a question, my stunning Essex girl, 'I swam as far as the furthest buoy. There were pink jellyfish?'

I panicked, I always panic when we discuss colour, ‘Pink? What kind of pink? Help
me, girl.’

‘Ruddy pink?’ I repeated, quizzing her, unclear as to how to envisage that in my
addled brain.

‘Mm! Like cooked lobster!’

I shook my head. Sad really, but I still didn’t see the colour, ruddy pink. I
changed the subject,

‘How big were these jellyfish?’

Tess spreads her hands apart more than a foot. ‘Oh, these were big ones,
David!'

I fussed over her. I dried her neck, her chest, the shining valley between her
heaving breasts,

'You could have been stung, Tess!'

'I could have!' She grinned, 'But I wasn't! The jellies were on the other side of
the boom. I was never in any danger, darling.'

She let me dry her protruding tummy button, rub the coarse towel between her
smooth thighs. I felt her cleft, through her flimsy covering, soft and pliant. We stared at each other knowingly. She wanted sex.

The heat intensified: 40C was the latest forecast. I felt my shoulders burn, my
skin tightening. I glimpsed at my watch: one o’clock, time for lunch. Heard the great bell of the duomo chiming.

Now the siesta begins, I thought, now the shops close, and so we go
to bed.

I thanked my lucky stars that Tess wasn't stung. The beach had a lifeguard but he
had gone off in search of a cool, shady pizza bar, an ice-cold beer no doubt. If Tess had been stung, I'd have had to take her into the toilets, strip her naked, and piss on her sting. The
thought of my urine, splashing all over her wound, healing her, only made me want her more.

I looked around us. The girls had gone. The sun worshippers were hastily donning
shorts and shirts over their cozzies, decking shades and straw hats, rolling up towels, deserting the baking hot beach in droves. Staring at Tess as if she had leprosy.

I finished drying her. We threw on some skimpy clothes over our swimming gear,
slipped on our flip-flops, and tripped up the dry, sandy white boards to the promenade, not bothering to shower the clingy volcanic grit off our bodies.

We crossed the crowded bus park. Amalfi is a busy transport hub. You can take the
blue bus along the winding coastal road, through quaint, narrow village streets, under moss-damp arches of hewn out rock, along the precipitous clifftops. As far as the few remaining anchovy
fishing harbours and Salerno in one direction, the trendy resorts of Positano and Sorrento in the other.

There are high-speed hydrofoils that whisk you off to the vertiginous Isle of
Capri. I had given Tess the grand tour. Worshipped her like a goddess since she flew into Naples. Wined and dined her under the stars. Even caressed her sacred mound under the tablecloth as we
waited to be served antipasti in the courtyard restaurant in Ravello. I wanted her so badly, I could cry.

We crossed the choked-busy coastal road, passed an ice cream bar, and entered the
crowded main square. There were restaurants with clothed tables festooned around the fountain facing the magnificent cathedral.

Tourists thronged the place, guzzling Peroni, stuffing their sunburnt faces with
pasta, or simply picnicking on the steep stone steps of the duomo. We stopped at the fountain, splashed our hot faces with ice-cold spring water, I admired her, enquiring,

'Fancy something to eat, Tess?'

I wish you could have seen the look on her face! She whispered sweet temptation in
my sun-grey ear.

'Mmmn! I want to eat you, babe! Think we should go back to the hotel and siesta,
don't you?'

I felt myself stretch inside my stone beach shorts, as if I had formally approved
her proposal.

'Yes, I think we should...'

From the main square it was a short climb, a push, through the endless crowds of
sightseers, past a gift shop that sold rude aprons, more ice cream salons, a closed delicatessen, until we reached the steep grey steps that led up to our hotel.

Wearily we climbed the steps in the stifling heat, turned right, then walked into
the cool, dark hotel lobby. We were greeted by an elegant olive-skinned woman with dense, curly black hair, a simple black dress, gold studs in her ears: an Amalfan beauty. Her lined face split
into a grin,

'Bon journo!'

I smiled at her appreciatively, 'Bon journo! Room...'

'305, 3rd Floor!'

Tess looked at me in a wanton way as I took our room key from the native’s soft
hand, feeling her un-ringed fingers. She explained, as we slowly ascended the three levels in the ancient lift,

'Her name is Maria. She is bi and would like to join us in bed tonight when her
shift finishes? Do you mind, David?'

I visualized the faint black moustache over Maria's pursed brown lips, the thick
black hair on her forearms, her hairy armpits,

'Don't mind at all,' I said.

'Good! She lives in. I went to her room last night with Meg.'

I was intrigued, ‘Meg?'

'Mmmn! She's staying in Amalfi with Harriet-Jacqui - just
visiting?'

'Harriet-Jacqui? We should meet up, have dinner, a drink or
two.’

Watch them have sex, I mused.

‘I invited them to our room tonight, with Maria. I thought we’d have an orgy. Use
our sheets as togas.'

'Tess!' I scoffed, 'You're insatiable!'

The lift stopped. I slid open the cage door. There was a small walnut table with a
vase of fresh flowers, grey roses, a gilt-edged mirror, facing the lift. I saw Tess's reflection in the mirror, she was blushing grey. She wanted sex. I wanted her. We stepped out of the lift,
thoughtlessly leaving the cage door open, and hurried to our bedroom.

I turned the key in the lock and threw open the door. The maids had re-made the
bed, provided us with extra clean sheets. They clearly knew, we fucked last night. I slammed the door behind us.

Tess, hungry for sex, was already pulling her damp tee-shirt off over her lovely
head, unzipping her grey shorts, sliding them down her long, slender legs, stepping out of their pile. I stripped off my shirt and shorts. Highly conscious of the bulge, jutting from my thong, I
slipped it off.

She was wearing her bikini. The rounds of her breasts stuck out of her tiny top.
Her slick tinted hair sprouted out of her crotch. I noticed her moulded vent as she sprawled over the bed in front of me. Suddenly, she screamed,

Her eyes rolled like two fruits on a one-armed bandit. She bled from her mouth.
Her lips rolled and curled. Painfully slowly, she pulled a length of spine out of her throat. I felt my brain rub against my skull with fear. Her tongue, her langue, her soft palate, the gums, were
covered in soft, bristly hairs, like those stinging hairs on moth caterpillars that make you itch if you pick them up. Spiky hairs, catching themselves in the ridge of her teeth, lining her
salivating, frothing mouth. She pulled her inflamed tongue out of her mouth. It had caked: rock-solid, hard and throbbing. Tess mouthed at me,

‘Hell me!’

I scooted to the telephone, desiring expedient room service, a pillow menu,
medical assistance, reception, Maria, anyone. The line was dead. I seized Tess’s mobile. No reception! Why hadn’t she reset?! I catapulted myself at the bedroom door, wrenching it open. Poked my
head, left, right, left again, out into the corridor, and called,

‘Help! Help! Help!’

No reply. Oh, sure, they were there alright! The French family with young kids. A
rude bastard from Bristol with the headset. The Germans who preferred not to speak English. The whole fucking EU was taking a siesta on the third floor that afternoon, but no-one came to help Tess.
Bolted doors! ‘Do Not Disturb’ signs! Closed, shuttered, windows! Abject disinterest!

I heard a keening sound coming from our bedroom – Tess by any chance? Ignoring her
whelps, I sprinted as far as the maid’s laundry room at the end of the corridor. The washing machine was on. Clean sheets for tomorrow morning, Tess. As if we needed them. Clean sheets
were the last thing on my mind. I ran to the cage-lift. The door was closed. I heard a croaking noise. Tess! There was a tatty paper sign, hanging despondently off the brass knob on the outer
door:

MI DISPLACE! POR FAVORE! APOLOGY. THE LIFT IS OUT OF ORDER. USE
STAIRS!

Oh, my God! I calculated the length of time it would take me to skip down
six flights of stairs, gather Maria, the Hotel Manager, the First Aid Box, wait for them to call a private ambulance or taxi to the hospital on the outskirts of Amalfi, then clamber back up to the
third floor with a rescue party.

And decided against.

Tess moaned, someplace at the back of my tormented mind. I went to her, went to my
baby, my heart. Must be something I can do? Or so I thought. I went...

My heart fell round my ankles. I stepped into the hell-hole and watched
bug-eyed as Tess un-cupped her bikini, speculating on the number of spiky hairs growing out of her wonderful flat, round, dark caramel nipples. There were thousands of them, stiffening up,
bristling out of her.

She screamed, ‘Aaaargh!’

Tess untied her tiny bikini bottoms. They flapped open. Hanging out of her were
hundreds of coarse hairy tendrils. She opened her legs as if her concession would make them drop on the grey-carpeted floor. They didn’t, sadly. Instead, the repulsive spines spread out in a
contagious rash down her thighs to the back of her knees. I saw two really big ones, brownish spines with grey tips, protrude then hang out of her belly. By now she was gasping, almost whispering,
in a softening hush,

‘Hell me, ‘avi!’

There was this odd smell? Sweet? Like someone with bad breath. Tooth decay? Rotten
flesh? I watched in horror as Tess reclined on the bed. Her flames, her bristling hairs, splayed all over the firm pillows, the pleasingly-woven patchwork quilt. Quivering, she drew her round knees
up to her full breasts and curled up in the foetal position.

My God, what are they doing to you?

‘My God, what are they doing to you?’ I cried out loud.

'Eat in me!' she murmured.

Not one to disappoint her in a crisis, I knelt on the bed, lowered my head between
my thighs, and threw up. Eat in her? Tess smelt of dead fish. Her flesh went blood grey and membranous, stretching over her skeleton: clearly visible through the bristling folds of
transparent grey skin.

I saw her heart beating in her chest. I saw Tess’s heart beat! Give out! She
reached for me. So, I went to her. She held my buzz-cut in her hands, drew my face close to hers. I saw the growth, spreading over her cheeks, and recoiled.

She shut me out, for my sake. She shut me out, so I didn’t have to watch her body
becoming a writhing mass of spiny tendrils. I pinched my nose, averted my gaze, but couldn’t shut my ears when she blew,

'Hell me!'

I knew it! Tess was going to explode. Couldn't hold out much longer. They were
coming out! I leaned forward and kissed her forehead. I closed my eyes, moving my head to her chest, resting my face on her heaving breasts, listening to her little heart pounding against my
cheeks. Seconds later, I heard her voice, demanding a final solution. She spoke clearly. I broke down,

'Kill me, avi!' she pleaded.

Ignoring her, I rolled Tess onto her front, so that I didn’t have to see her
grimace of death, her bulging eyeballs, those marbling whites, the protruding spikes growing out of her walnut irises.

'Kill me!' she repeated.

My woman was screaming much louder this time.

Fuck!

I lay Tess flat on her back, with her head hanging over the edge of the bed, so
that I could break her neck expediently, then run off down the stairs and inform Maria that there had been a tragic accident in room 305, before giving myself up to the Police.

I felt her reach behind my back, hold my bum, caress the hairy tops of my thighs.
Sensed her indecency, her vulnerability, her intimacy, for the last time. I choked. Salt tears streamed down my face… she found her voice,

‘’ove you!’ she cried.

Her eyes sparkled at me. The bristles and spines retracted. I loved her. I took
her in my arms. We lay on the bed, our sweaty bodies entwined, kissing, stroking each other's faces, just loving touching each other's hot, grey, blushing skin, as my beautiful woman slowly
relaxed, and died.